The Significance
by CampionSayn
Summary: A continuation of the Vampiric Victimology series. One-shots, maybe. But the consideration will be for all parties involved—not just the ones with blue eyes and similar DNA.


Title: The Significance  
Summary: A continuation of the Vampiric Victimology series. One-shots, maybe. But the consideration will be for all parties involved—not just the ones with blue eyes and similar DNA.  
Warning: Rated for a reason—mention of rape, hinted incest, very odd pairings spanning from slash, femlash, inter-species and onwards. Violence can't be helped.  
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I make no money from this.  
Dedication: To _Rose Midnight Moonlight Black_, for comment and appreciation of Vampiric Victimology. I considered over adding to that for a long time; now that I gave an Epilogue, I can continue on here. It is my choice whether this will be a one-shot, or a series of chapters added on at any time I like… but this is a continuation.

* * *

_-:-  
That blind hate of our humanity is what we mean when we use the word 'haunted.'  
-Rose Red._

* * *

**Infallible**-:-

[**Hunt and catch for all the life to live, but never a day goes by that there is no regret for the act**…]

With the black gauze around his wrist and the taste of much needed (_not like air, not like water, not like the dark, but still needed_) fresh blood running through him, Terry touched the very calloused tip of his thumb to his fangs as they inverted back to their natural length. They would still be a little longer and sharper than an ordinary person, but at the moment, Terry couldn't bring himself to care as he observed Damian wiping his hands off on the Soul colored handkerchief he quite often carried around with him; the blood from the wild game they had taken down together (_fire in the thrill of the hunt still bloomed along the ridges of their ears in pools of warmth that made them appear to be in the midst of a cold, cymbals clanging where their hearts were; the dead Marigold Elk a sorry sight for the person who found the carcass later_) leaving garish trails of ruby in the wake of fingers that should have been, but were not, as rough as Terry's own on most days.

"You don't suppose we should take it to someone to do…I don't know. _Something_with it?"

Damian shook some of the debris (_leaves, leaves, rotted moss, some dirt that smelled of autumn_) that had clung to him during the hunt from his hair with a shake of his head and the combing of sharp fingernails, but inevitably looked over to his younger sibling, a scrunching of skin around the nose telling Terry enough of an answer before he even opened his mouth.

"Dear brother," it is said with sarcasm, but kinder than he would be to any of their older siblings (_soft and softer every year it seemed to Terry; but he could be wrong,_) "You know that it cannot be something beautiful anymore. If we took it to the taxidermist it would simply whither into tattered mulch for flies and beetles to feast upon."

Terry sighed into the air and out of himself, "I know, but…"

"We swallow blood and kill on the hunt for a reason."

(_It cannot be helped, it is true. Without the thrill and the success of a good hunt, their own blood turns against them and they would be quite volatile and likely to strike out on anyone and anything. This outlet has been a way to maintain dignity and the respect of the people for over hundreds of years_.)

"I know, but still, it seems wrong to just leave it here."

Damian dusted off his knees at this and—he hated how soft he was getting, _HATED_ it—took a moment of awful pity on the other. Considering over the absolution of a good deed after hunting the creature before them that had already let out into the wind and cold its own death rattle, Damian swallowed a puff (_one gulp, one bauble_) of the cold night air, full of mist and life of the forest and held out his own palm before his mouth.

Terry's eyes gleamed with moisture and grace in that moment when Damian let out that breath that turned into something solid and colored and warm (_the softly crushed pulp of a blue eye when it is snatched by a cadaver bird from a corpse freshly dead_) into his palm for just a moment; only as big as a chicken's brown speckled egg. Then he held it over the corpse before them and crushed the solid breath in hand. There it cracked and something of deep salivary sickness green plopped without courtesy or grace onto the body to slick and shine over the slowly decaying beast.

The younger of the two felt an image in the back of his mind and then saw it before him in this spell his brother cast. The green covered the corpse whole, writhed like maggots engulfing the body entirely and the image Damian had intended burst free!

Both vampires counted a collection of Masque Death, Mozart's Darkest Opera, and Bernini's Flesh colored butterflies flash up and up and up into the night sky. Particles of being (_life, they had been the life_) of the animal they devoured turned into a spectacular gift from one to the other in that moment.

* * *

[_Beginnings of the earth, wide forests expanding_…]

_Ra's al Ghul continued to look out beyond the realm of his study (**deep grey, marble walls like the skin of a dead goat and carpets from many vendors of the eastern sand colonies strewn out and about to be alighted from the shadows by the roaring fire that was spewing little reeds of smoke from oak and ash tree boughs he'd had Ubu and a few other members of the staff collect**) room, and into the woods surrounding his estate. The air about his being was colder than usual—had been for weeks building up—from his frustration directed through the glass of his window and into the surrounding woods._

_It had been almost a month since Talia had brought him news about her child, his grandson, being within a hundred miles of the estate and almost twice that time since he'd had a feeling that his family and his extended company (his legion of vampires, ninjas, undead, lesser inclusive individuals) were being watched. He had the assumption that it was just Tallant staking out the beautifully Gothic building before popping in and surprising them. Rather, when he did come (**as he always did when he was in the close vicinity—three hundred miles or less—of his more understanding family**) to see them and give them an update of his life as it was (**that woman had been with him, smelling freshly of blood, but had stayed outside in the freezing cold skipping around the headstones of the seven hundred dead of a civilization of dwarf Elk-Changers that made up one of the al Ghul gardens**), the feeling intensified._

_Ra's sipped from the heavy red wine in the glass he was holding, before he set it on the windowsill and tried to drown out the image of seven very large crows that had been glaring back at him a mile away. They had flown away once he'd looked away, of course, but not because of any fear for him. Ra's had a feeling that the horrible beings didn't give a wit how powerful he was._

_A knock came to his door and Ra's was appalled to find himself a little startled and brought from his thoughts._

_"Yes? What is it?" He called, harsh like Winter herself in cold flesh and agitated like January walking through a river to get February on the other side._

_The door opened (**quiet on its hinges and without protest from the heavy-heavy wood the door was made of in its entirety**) and Ra's found his most faithful servant walk in, worry upon his face and in his bedroom robes no less. If he was any other of the grand master's servants, he would have been struck in the face (perhaps to be killed) and thrown out in the morning to the waiting streets to be swallowed up in poverty and the cold and no references. Ubu had been with the house of al Ghul since any of them could remember, however, and Ra's would not begrudge the man walking in to check on him in his solid Lilac Candle's colored robes only barely tied up to keep out the estate's chill air, head still and ever bowed down respectfully._

_"Master," he bowed low, almost touching his forehead to the ground like a proper servant to what could be called a god among the elite, "I have been wondering if you're alright. I beg forgiveness if I overstep, but since your grandson came and went, you've seemed less and less yourself."_

_Ra's stood and spun and sat in a large seat he'd had brought in from out of the country he presently found himself (**Turkey, he believed, but it had been a long time and now he only cared that the seat was only solid where his feet touched the carpet and the rest was all soft Zen's Grand Green made of some composition of soft velvet and such—why should he care where it came from**) before taking up his drink of wine and silver dragon's blood. He gulped it down and waved Ubu to take a seat on the bench of the piano at the far end of the room. A little, more and less sentimental part of him that usually only felt for his own children and only worthy grandson, didn't want Ubu too close; there he would not be under fire of his hate should his ire rise and his blood boil beneath his own arctic flesh._

_"Ubu, I have a feeling that this place is being put under analysis by an enemy because of Tallant," Ra's explained, eye reaching out through the window again, dark and cold and mean tempered in his physical persona, "But, I don't know from who."_

_Ubu blinked at Ra's (**solid black eyes in their own way quite wise but suffered into almost oblivion by years under his master's own visions**) and spoke, "You don't know, sir? But, you know all your enemies."_

_Ra's felt his teeth move in their spaces a little bit, but his hand didn't tighten on his wine glass, "Yes. I believed that I did. Now, I'm not so sure…"_

_There was a chord inside of the piano behind Ubu that had been broken for fifty years. In the forest and among the Birch trees that still bore fragile husks that once had been green and red and beautiful, the crows and ravens Ra's had been eyeing flew away and left a little thrum running along that chord. A reminder that they had come and, perhaps, gotten what they wanted for the moment being._

* * *

[_**A Lion may ally with a Unicorn, but one has to consider how they could stand each other**_…]

The silent butler to the king of Gotham stood erect and kind in the strange room that a fellow in his own trade (_a sort-of Malim Ravenborn by the name of Merlyn, who was equally less impressed by the reason to assist as he was by the other butler himself_) showed him to after quite a lot of walking down thirteen halls and five staircases. The lady of the house (_house being a somewhat operative word as it was just about the size of Wayne Manor on the outside—though, it was a cumbersome collective of black and white rather than brownstone and red brick and therefore could have been much older—and had quite a few turns and twists on the inside that made Alfred's head spin_) was absent before him thus far, but he could wait. Alfred was nothing if not patient.

It had only been five minutes, after-all—a third of the time Master Bruce sometimes kept him waiting.

He took a light step to the left (_an attempt to straighten his figure and open up the channel of feeling back into his leg so it didn't fall asleep on him with his simple grey pants already cutting that circulation off a little after the walk through second to last room Merlyn had dragged him through that was rather—and he would have some experience in this as he was older than Master Bruce's family all-together—similar to a forest in Cambodia that served as sanctuary for over thirty-seven species of Rose-Angel Trumpet vegetable lambs. Some of the little yellow and white puffballs—no bigger than a hamster—with their umbilical stalks still attached, had been grazing and he'd had to jumped over them_) before he was shocked by the loud bang of the skylight window above his head (shale lining, grey-green windows that were like the eyes of an salt-water tropical fish) opening. He glanced up, refined and dignified, to find several large—almost terrifying to behold in their sizes ranging from that of snowy owls to that of siren-harpies from Mesopotamia—black birds flying down in a 'V' formation before dispersing through the room to find a perch. Not a hard task, he found, as the room was botanical and Victorian like a Lovecraft fantasy after a bout of hysteria and use of some very dark, pure opium.

Three of the birds landed on the one piece of furniture in the room (_a literal wicker-match sofa made of birch and red skyrocket plants growing out of the dirt floor into form by nice clean white magic instead of the wicked-wicked dark magic that made up most of the property_) to perch on the arms and the back and looked curiously over at Alfred as their brethren chose the railings of the stairs that led down from the high entrance to the room (_twenty-two long stairs and the rail was two White Heather trees that also grew from the floor and entrenched into the stone stairs and the strange walls that smelled of sea salt and made Alfred rather uncomfortable_) and waited, seemingly agitated. Alfred nodded politely at smallest raven on the sofa and was only half-surprised when the creature gave a little bow and then (with the others in tow) tilted its head to the ceiling and gave an echoed cackle.

This echo crashed in volume and waves around the room twice and then again before the bird on the sofa did the most astounding thing before Alfred. It yawped up a whole (_living, writhing, slick with salt water and mucus_) rainbow trout that dropped from its beak with the bird's eyes paying little attention to it at all.

Before the fish hit the ground, a rattle seized the room to replace the cawing (_tens of thousands of little white seashells crashing together in a draw-string bag_) and the dust from the floor heaved up into the figure of a beautiful woman with soulful-brilliant eyes and summer veils blonde hair (_robes the color of silt rendered moss in a river clinging to her as if it was a European kimono_) to glance at Alfred. The fish was caught in her hand easily and her thick, sharp fingernails pierced it dead—blood flowing from the punctures into her skin so her hand appeared as if it was growing black veins.

"It appears, Mr. Pennyworth," Harley, queen unto herself and all of the subjects that made it their business to be under her sovereign eyes (_if Alfred would venture a guess, those were the right eyes to be watched under—Master Wayne himself, while fair beyond measure and a man of the people, was never quite so secretively mischievous_), politely stated, grinding the fish into powder when all the liquid left it and ventured into her, "That the targets that Mr. Wayne has been trying to capture—according to Josie Mac and my dear detectives on loan here—is indeed at that manor with that awful woman and grand-father. I'd suggest you go and tell your employer while you still have the chance to catch them. Ubu says that they'll be leaving soon."

Alfred—kind, brilliant, wise—understood the meaning. He gave her a grateful bow (_back not as stiff as it used to be when he had to get the messages from the woman_), arm waved forward and then to his stomach, before he straightened and made his way out with a little click of his fingers (_not as polite as taking the long way, but urgent business was urgent business_) and a re-organization of his physical body into thirty-something white moths that flittered for Wayne Manor in a most urgent way.


End file.
